Art of a Lie

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Genres: Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction; Mystery

Synopsis

In 18th-century England, a widowed confectioner is drawn into a web of love, betrayal, and intrigue and a battle of wits in this masterful historical novel from the author of the “delicious puzzle-box of a novel” (The New York Times) and USA TODAY bestseller The Square of Sevens.

Following the murder of her husband in what looks like a violent street robbery, Hannah Cole is struggling to keep her head above water. Her confectionary shop on Piccadilly is barely turning a profit, her suppliers conspiring to put her out of business because they don’t like women in trade. Henry Fielding, the famous author-turned-magistrate, is threatening to confiscate the money in her husband’s bank account because he believes it might have been illicitly acquired. And even those who claim to be Hannah’s friends have darker intent.

Only William Devereux seems different. A friend of her late husband, Devereux helps Hannah unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his death. He also tells her about an Italian delicacy called iced cream, an innovation she is convinced will transform the fortunes of her shop. But their friendship opens Hannah to speculation and gossip and draws Henry Fielding’s attention her way, locking her into a battle of wits more devastating than anything she can imagine.

Release date: August 5, 2025

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 448

Sample

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

NINE TIMES OUT of ten, when a customer walks into the Punchbowl and Pineapple, I can guess what will tempt them. It is the confectioner’s principal art, anticipating wants and needs—and people betray their desires in countless small ways. For a young lady taut with nerves, dressed to make a house call, I suggest a pretty basket of French macaroons to impress her friends. For a young buck in the first flush of love, seeking a gift for his mistress, I propose a petits puits d’amour (the name and oval shape might make him smile, though I act oblivious to any indelicate connotations). For an older gentleman—picture one crimson from hunting and port—a rich plum cake spiced with cinnamon and mace. For a widow in mittens, a box of scented violet wafers—or if she is bent with the rheumatism, bergamot chips. For a little boy with a cough, I prescribe a guimauve : a soft cake of honey whipped with the sap of the marsh mallow plant. And for his governess, a sweet syllabub, to be eaten at one of my tables, while she ponders how life’s misfortunes brought her here.

That day, the fifteenth of June 1749, I was watching a gentleman in the mirror behind my counter. He’d just strolled in, escaping the bustle of Piccadilly, remarkably unsullied by the dust and heat of the day outside. His finger hovered over my golden nests of spun sugar, each filled with marchpane eggs and topped with a sugar-work bird—a new creation I’d put my hand to whilst the shop had been closed for mourning. Like my birds, he was a colorful creature—his coat a smoke-blue silk with silver embroidery at the collar and cuffs, a topaz pin in his cream cravat, and a plump meringue of a periwig beneath a smoke-blue hat adorned with a peacock feather. The patina of the mirror speckled his tawny skin, the warp of the glass distorting one golden-brown eye.

Not a sugar nest, I thought, not unless he was looking for a present for his wife—and he had taken a stool at my counter, which suggested he intended to eat. An apricot tart, I decided. Refined, yet unadventurous, like most of my customers.

To my surprise, he pointed to a silver tureen, where half a dozen glass goblets of ice shavings nestled amidst larger shards of ice. “Is that a Persian sherbet?” he said. “I haven’t had one in years.”

“Perfect for the weather, sir,” Theo said.

I could imagine how she’d be looking at him. Fifteen years old, and men still a mystery she presumed delightful. “The goods are behind the counter,” I’d sometimes remind her. “Not in front of it.”

“I’ll do it,” I said, turning. “Go see to the balancing pan.”

“Yes, Mrs. C.” Theo gave me a pert look, and threaded her way, hips swaying, to the door at the back of the shop.

Undistorted by the mirror, the gentleman appeared slightly familiar, though I couldn’t quite place him. Perhaps from church? A carriage moved on the street outside, and a shaft of sunlight gilded his face, revealing a few delicate lines of age around the eyes and mouth. He put up a hand to shield his gaze, signet ring flashing.

I poured a syrup of rosewater over one of the goblets of ice, adding a scatter of dried rose petals and ground Turkey pistachios. The gentleman handed over the coins and while I weighed them, he plunged in with his spoon.

“Your girl wasn’t wrong,” he said, after a moment. “That’s perfection right there.”

I inclined my head at the compliment. “Most find the flavors too exotic.”

He grinned. “Round here they still say that about a peppercorn.”

He’d get no warm words from me, a widow of nearly thirty. Yet I was still pondering the mystery of where I had seen him before. Once I’d secreted the coins in my money-drawer, my curiosity got the better of me. “Do I know you, sir?”

His smile faded. “We’ve not been introduced, but I attended your husband’s memorial service. William Devereux is my name. My condolences, Mrs. Cole. Jonas was a general, a true force. I can hardly believe that he’s gone.”

People think it’s what you want to hear. To know that the man you loved mattered. That his qualities were recognized, that he is remembered. How could they know that every morning when I awoke, I put my shoulder to the grindstone of forgetting? Here in the shop, I could pretend that none of it had happened. That Jonas was out on parish business, or had popped upstairs to fetch a spool of ribbon or a clean apron. It brought me a measure of peace, just for an hour or two, until some well-meaning customer like Mr. Devereux brought it all back. The punch in the gut, the sick wave of fear for my own future.

Mr. Devereux was watching me with evident concern. “I have something for you,” he said, holding out a folded piece of paper. I found myself gazing at an official-looking document with a stamp and a seal.

“I advise gentlemen on the prudent investment of their money,” he explained. “Jonas was a client of mine. Acting upon my counsel, your husband placed ten pounds with the Culross Iron and Coal Company. I am pleased to say that this is the dividend from the first quarter.” He smiled and handed me a silver crown.

“Ten pounds?” I said, knowing nothing of this investment, trying to keep the eagerness from my tone. “Is it possible to redeem that money now?”

“Not for the moment, I’m afraid. But all being well, you can expect to see around five or six shillings every quarter, with the stock becoming redeemable in nine months’ time.”

Five shillings was still five shillings. Every penny mattered now. Since reopening the shop after Jonas’s murder, everything had proved a struggle. Summer was always the worst time of our year—the nobility and gentry having fled the swelter of the city for Bath and Tunbridge Wells—and widowhood had brought new challenges to my trade.

“I’d only known Jonas a few months,” Devereux went on. “We met by chance in the bank and got to talking. It led to a fledgling friendship. We drank together sometimes—at the Running Horse or the Star and Garter.” He sighed. “Are they any closer to finding the villains responsible?”

I shook my head rather bleakly, and Devereux had the good grace to look away, rattling his spoon against his glass to scrape up the last of the syrup. “Delicious,” he pronounced. “Though it’s iced cream that I truly dream of in this weather.”

Grateful for this rather clumsy effort to change the subject, I studied him quizzically. “Iced cream, sir?”

“My mother used to make it when I was a boy. She was raised in Italy, and it is a great delicacy over there. Mother used to flavor the cream with peach or elderflower and then it was frozen almost solid. I used to think it was like biting into a snowball—though snow never tasted so good.”

His words intrigued me. Even before Jonas’s death, I’d been convinced that our shop required innovation if we were to stand out from our competitors. Now my need to entice new customers through the door was rather more pressing.

“Do you know how it is done?” I asked. “Freezing cream, I mean?” I had never seen, nor heard of frozen liquids other than water.

“I am afraid I only ever enjoyed the end result,” Devereux said. “Many years later I tried it again, on the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. But it was sold from a pail, so I saw none of the preparation.”

A woman in a wide yellow hat approached the counter and I noticed her steal a second glance at Mr. Devereux. “What is that?” she asked, pointing.

“A simple pound cake, madam,” I said, “but filled with a Seville orange cream. It’s like a burst of sunshine in your mouth.”

Her lip quivered. “I’ll take six of those almond wafers.”

I turned to box up her purchase, and Devereux met my eye in the mirror. “Too exotic,” he mouthed.

I was still frowning at his presumption when Theo returned. “Mr. Brunsden is come to settle his bill.” She set down a tray of lemon jellies and smiled at Mr. Devereux.

Restraining a sigh, I excused myself. As I passed through the shop, my little jewel box of gilt-edged mirrors and pistachio paneling, I exchanged a few words with my regular customers. Entering the hot, sweet hell of my kitchen, I found Oscar sweating over the pastry table, stamping out almond hearts. Not quite trusting Theo with the shop’s money yet, I told Oscar to watch the counter and to send in Felix to take the goods down to the cellar. Then I smoothed my apron, and walked out into the yard.

Roger Brunsden was resting upon his cane in the shade of the old vine that had colonized my back wall and those of the neighboring yards. His boys trooped in and out of the alley, grunting under the weight of sacks of flour and salt, sugar loaves wrapped in blue paper, boxes of dried figs and currants.

He greeted me with an elaborate bow, then handed me his bill. “That time again, I am afraid, Mrs. Cole.”

Brunsden had the manners of a marquis and the accent of a Thameside stevedore. Sweat crawled from beneath his periwig, staining his cravat yellow with some kind of scalp oil. His pink, piggish eyes, fringed by bristling white lashes, traveled over my purple gown.

“Black was rather too somber for my customers,” I said, regretting it immediately. I didn’t owe Roger Brunsden or anyone else an explanation.

“Not for me to judge,” he replied, unsmiling.

I studied his bill. “But this is more than a usual month,” I cried. “We only reopened two weeks ago.”

“The price of sugar isn’t what it was,” he said. “Nor the price of wheat.”

I didn’t believe his excuses, not for a moment. He just didn’t like women in trade—and was seeking to take advantage of my lack of experience with the books. Nor was he the only one. Between him, the fruiterer, and the egg man, I’d be lucky to break even that month. “Give me five minutes with a paring knife,” I’d exclaimed to Oscar in frustration, “and I’ll pit their stony hearts like Morello cherries!”

Reluctantly, I parted with my coins and returned to the shop. Mr. Devereux had gone, and Oscar glanced pointedly at a gentleman of middling years who was sitting in his place at my counter. Fearing he’d also come to collect on a bill, I slowed my pace.

His broad shoulders were hunched, his giant body contorted awkwardly upon the stool, one tree trunk of a leg stuck out to the side as if it was injured. His clothes were very fine—burgundy silk, a good French lace—but rather disheveled in the wearing, his cravat and wig askew, his coat misbuttoned. The intensity of his gaze suggested a fierce curiosity about the world, whilst the imperious jut of his long chin (which nearly met his long, curved nose) and the curl of one great fist upon the counter implied a determination to leave his stamp upon it.

He turned as I approached. “Mrs. Hannah Cole?” he said. “My name is Henry Fielding, the chief magistrate of Westminster. I’d like to talk to you about your husband’s murder.”